


Earn

by yeahyoursisbetterprobably



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Kidnapping, Slavery, Starvation, hiccup on his own, it doesn't get deep, mild descriptions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 00:45:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18063335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeahyoursisbetterprobably/pseuds/yeahyoursisbetterprobably
Summary: This is not the first time Hiccup has been kidnapped. This is the first time there's been no way to track him.





	Earn

**Author's Note:**

> Ahahahah
> 
> This is ... not great. But the plot bunny bit.

He’s alone; stripped to tunic and trousers and prosthetic. Toothless is somewhere out of sight, but probably still in earshot, and his gear is further up the beach out of the tide break.

 

He hears them, but hasn’t the time to reach his sword before he’s surrounded; and while Hiccup’s good at unarmed combat, he has no chance to defend himself against so many at once before he’s hit across the back of his head.

* * *

He comes to as they haul him up over the side of their ship. He struggles; but they’ve taken his leg and shackled his hands, and while Hiccup is a little foolhardy at times, he hopes that by now he knows better than to escalate a bad situation. He has no weapons, no armour and no dragon, and he’s looking up the length of a sword that’s far too close to his neck for comfort.

One of his kidnappers hands his prosthetic the sword-wielding man. The sword drops, but there are strong hands dinning into Hiccup’s shoulders, and someone steps down hard on his knee.

The man with the sword, who might, in fact, be the captain of this venture, inspects the false leg and then turns back to Hiccup, sword coming up again to sit at his throat.

“You built this?”

Hiccup doesn’t want to answer, but his’s in no place to refuse, so he swallows and nods. The captain smiles with his teeth, and looks up at the men holding Hiccup down against the decking.

“Take him bellow.”

 

The hull space is dark, damp and smothering. Hiccup has splinters caught in his clothes and bruises down his arms and leg, and he can barely see anything yet as his eyes adjust. But he can hear, and he can smell.

 

Hiccup knows trappers – at least the dragon-hunting variety, but the principle is the same whatever the cargo. And this ship is already fit to burst. 

* * *

Hiccup tries to count the days in the dark. They are given little water, and even less to eat, and his count reaches eleven before they hear the sounds of the ship coming into port.

 

They spend another day in the dark.

 

When the trappers come for them – and Hiccup will not use the other word; can’t bring himself to, because that would mean acceptance – it’s a kind of chaos. One by one the … prisoners are dragged out into the air and the light. They’re weak; hungry and thirsty and barely able to walk, but no one cares. Manacles are replaced by rope and they’re doused down with icy water.

 

When Hiccup’s turn comes, someone thrusts his prosthetic at him barks out words that he doesn’t understand, but the point gets across, so Hiccup fits his leg back on, shivering and soaking wet. He has a sinking feeling in his gut – it feels amazing to walk again … but where he’s walking to? That terrifies him.

 

Single file they’re marched along the gangways into the port to be corralled into a single walled pen. There’s water, but no food.

 

They’re left there for another night.

 

No one has slept well, if at all, when sunrise comes, and they can all hear the commotion behind the walls. Hiccup can feel his hands shaking; he’s utterly exhausted and completely wired at the same time. He wants to run, to fly, but can’t even force himself to take a single step.

 

The trappers have started coming to take the prisoners. Some ties almost one after the other. Sometimes with a longer pause in between. Hiccup knows where this is going to end. He fought against this for years on behalf of the dragons, but he never –

This was never –

 

He’s so out of his head that he shouts out in shock when he’s grabbed up. Kicks out once, but is too weak to do more then be dragged along. Out of the pen, up onto a platform, stood before a sea of faces while his kidnappers gesture and yell.

It’s not the Norsk he knows, but there are words that might be similar. He’s doesn’t need to understand though. He knows. They gesture to his teeth, his leg. They pull up his shirt and tug his head back by grabbing his hair. And Hiccup lets them, because he’s standing here with no weapons, no armour and no dragon.

 

There are voices calling out from the crowd below now, hands being raised and the auctioneer is egging them all on, but eventually the haggling comes to its end, and Hiccup is pushed down a stair and off the platform. There is a man coming forward towards them through the crowd and passes without so much as looking at Hiccup to finalise his … purchase. Hiccup feels ill.

 

Moments later there is a rope looped around Hiccups neck – a leash; and Hiccup doesn’t even think when he’s pulled along to follow his new –

The man who –

 

He’s tired and hungry and hasn’t slept in over a week. He can’t understand what the people around him are saying and missing his home. His heart aches, and his body aches and for the first time since this whole ordeal started he starts to weep.

 

He doesn’t dare stop walking.

 

By the time the two of them arrive at the house on the hill, Hiccup has no more tears to cry. He feels a little better, a little bitter, a little more resigned.

 

The man who bought him is older. Grey haired and uses a cane to walk, but is straight backed and anyone who they passed on the way here showed him the kind of respect that Hiccup recognises from home. From when his father was chief. From when his father still lived.

 

The house door is opened for them, there is a hall, at the end a great chair. The man hands his cane off to the doorman, and takes his seat, and Hiccup is forced along behind.

 

The man settles in his seat, and makes eye contact with Hiccup for the first time. He says something, and Hiccup thinks he, maybe, asked for Hiccup’s name. Hiccups shakes his head though. He doesn’t have the energy to spend guessing what this man has to say, but a voice pipes up from behind him,

“The …  _chief_  wishes to know what to call you.”

Hiccup turns to the doorman, whose accent is terrible, but at least understandable, and something comes to him; slowly, haltingly, Hiccup’s thoughts coalesce.

 

Chief

 

_Chief_

 

And maybe it’s because Hiccup is still so new at this; so inexperienced that he forgot.

 

He spends too long staring, perhaps, because the doorman repeats himself with annoyance colouring his tone, but Hiccup has a plan, so he takes a deep breath, straightens his back and channels his inner Stoic as much as he can. He turns. Looks directly in this other chief’s eye.

 

“Tell him this; I am Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, Chief of the Island of Berk. Compensation will be rewarded for my release and return passage to my people.”

 

There is a clatter behind him. The doorman has dropped the cane.

 

The chief of this strange place frowns, and says something short and sharp. The doorman looks nervous as he translates Hiccups introduction.

 

Hopefully correctly, Hiccups thinks. But he doesn’t look away from the man sitting in the great chair. Sees how his eyes widen a little and his brow rises. How he looks Hiccup up and down.

 

There is a long pause before he speaks again, and slowly the doorman translates.

 

“The  _chief_  wishes to know who crafted your false appendage.”

“I did.”

The translation, then another reply.

“You will demonstrate your craft.”

“I see no reason why I should.”

The doorman hisses in disapproval, before taking a breath to begin his translation, but pauses when the other chief raises his hand and stands. He lets the rope around Hiccups throat drop, and steps forward to meet him eye to eye.

“Because, young chieftain, I do not have the funds to risk by having you disappear into sea-fog without upholding your end of the bargain. But this kind of crafting is something I have never seen before. I propose a new deal.”

“You speak Norsk.”

“Did you think I would purchase a northern slave while not being able to understand him? I am not that much of a risk taker.”

Hiccup gritted his teeth and bit back his response. He needed this man to like him if his plan was going to work. He took a deep breath.

“You had a proposal.”

The older chief’s smile is sharp, but not, Hiccup thinks, cruel. Mischievous, and curious.

“Stay a while, little chieftain, and  _earn_  that ship home.”

 

And Hiccup might still be terrified, and missing home, and desperately not thinking about the people he left behind, and how much could change while he stays missing, and  _Toothless_  – but there is a spark of a challenge in this other chief’s eye and there is a part of Hiccup that could never back down.

 

Earn it, he says.

 

Hiccup trains dragons. Rides a Night Fury. Brought revolution and peace to Berk.

 

This chief wants Hiccup to earn his freedom? Then that’s  _exactly_  what he’ll do.


End file.
